Demolition of historic Davenport house under way

Crews begin tearing down the French Decker House Thursday at 10th and Pershing streets in Davenport.

Demolition began Thursday on the turn-of-the-century Decker
French House near the Palmer College of Chiropractic campus in
Davenport, nearly a decade-and-a-half after the college first
sought permission to raze it.

The college received permission to demolish the home in April,
with the Davenport Historic Preservation Commission voting 6-2 in
favor of allowing a demolition permit.

Robert Lee, Palmer's vice chancellor for support services, said
asbestos removal and disconnecting utilities led to the delay
between getting the go-ahead and the demolition.

The Decker French House, at the corner of East 11th Street and
Pershing Avenue, was built 99 years ago in the prairie style of
Frank Lloyd Wright. It is part of the Cork Hill historic district
and on the National Register of Historic Places. The house was the
former home of early Davenport industrialist George Decker
French.

It has sat empty and boarded up since the first battle between
preservationists and Palmer in the late 1990s.

This spring, the historic preservation commission, basing its
decision on a city inspection that determined the house was
deteriorating rapidly and becoming a hazard, reversed its previous
position on the house and agreed to support a demolition
permit.

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Fritz Miller, a member of the preservation commission,
previously said the fate of the house was an example of demolition
by neglect. Before Palmer's purchase in 1996, the home had been
broken up into several small apartments. Preservationists warned
that the college bought it to clear space for more surface parking
near the campus.

However, Lee said parking on the lot was never part of the plan
and noted it will be converted to green space.

"We'll be stabilizing the site this month and seeding it next
spring," he said. "We're also replacing a deteriorated sidewalk and
cleaning it up and turning it into a grass lawn area. We have
committed for it to be green space, not parking. I can't say it
won't someday be a building, but for now it will be green
space."

Palmer officials cited "economic hardship" because of the high
cost of renovating the building when it originally requested a
demolition permit. The estimated cost of renovation was tabbed at
$700,000 to $1 million. Lee said the college looked at several
plans to convert it into apartments or a sorority house but
couldn't make the numbers work.